Four Decades And A Poem
Page 4
still drifting….
Baffled as a soul traveling to Hades,
sinking to the bottom like a falling feather
from a high flying bird,
finally sleeping on the comfortable clay,
where you will get new life,
rotting…
‘til your time has come
to live again….
Reincarnation
Then one day
he will pass your way.
The artist,
picking you in his cautious hands,
not to break your single bone.
He will place you on his desk,
careful no breeze will touch you,
While he perspires,
wiping his sweat to his sleeves.
Each stroke of his brush
caressing you and giving new life.
What Dreams Could Come ~ For the Unborn Children
I know there’s sadness in your eyes
and if I heard your stories I would smile,
how each step you took, took you
closer to the dreams that were made for your sake,
and how each day embarked upon,
became your life’s adventure.
You could be the one,
to stop all the pain of this world,
bringing healing to an aching soul.
You could be the one to go on the moon,
- give us a different notion.
You could simply sit at home and watch
other children play,
for your feet, too weak to make you stand.
You could be the one
to rule the nation and bring justice to its citizens,
You could be a pope or a saint,
a king, or a queen,
or you could just live by the drainage.
You could be everything or you could be nothing,
but they simply didn’t
let you step into this world and make your mark!
Kannel ~
The Lake of Renewal
As our first foot touched the water,
the lake wrinkled,
frowning at our muddiness,
The sweat and the dust of us little boys
from the exhaustive games of catching cook,
hide and seek or hopscotch,
Like a gentle governess
grinning at a pampered child.
Our frail bodies feared
the cold embrace of the water,
Little by little shivering, screaming
we would go deeper, deeper…
‘til we were finally comfortable.
Occasionally,
we would lay nets with large holes in them,
through which the canny fish would pass!
Shallow summers,
Made our feet touch the floor of the lake,
and in monsoon it swelled,
making mango trees on its edges, our diving boards.
Refreshed and renewed,
we would leave the lake,
as she shook her head,
smiling patently behind us.
Neighbors
Wide jawed, bubbles of hatred splash
from their eyes.
Hissing steam, they yell at each other: in silence.
Crossing each other’s path,
Has lately turned into the greatest source
of bad luck.
Jogging in darkness,
where the rays of goodness and humility
never penetrate.
When competence turns to jealousy,
Hatred to anger,
and annoying others,
becomes an utmost pleasure…
time eventually turns neighbors,
into mere strangers.
Paper Boats
Your name was all, once,
it would drift me to the ends
of the universe,
anytime and in my dreams.
Once, our minds were broad
like petals of hibiscus
clearly bright and colorful,
every word you spoke
would brush like feathers
against my soul, gently.
We were like paper boats,
vulnerable,
sailing in the same route
both, in troubled water.
It’s good you found your way
out of this shallow brook into the river,
while I got caught by the rocks
and twigs fallen across.
But that’s not the point,
for, as the water flows,
it will shift me, free me
and flow me out into the river…
what matters, is this emptiness
that fills my heart,
your silence that makes me feel
that the wind shouldn’t blow
and sail me into the river,
your coldness that makes me feel
this water stagnated
and I soaked and drowned.
Cursing Sr. Joan
Fortunately, she survived.
Honestly, I had prayed for her doom
before the next day arrived.
In her strictest behavioral condition
of a female Hitler rendition,
She wrote: Inattentive, talking in class,
and constantly looking out, the window glass.
The whole day I thought this wasn’t fair,
and dedicated for her ruin, my evening prayer.
Surely the heavens took this, a big joke
As Sr. Joan appeared the next day,
unruffled, with her habit and cloak.
She asked me if I had the remark signed
behind my lips my teeth began to grind.
I said no, and out she sent me, of her class
giving me no choice, but wasted time to pass.
On my knees for forty minutes of piercing pain,
I was out there, cursing her again and again.
(Written for those innocent days and for dearest Sister Joan, the best teacher and nun, yes she taught many values of life to her pupils, which includes me. God Bless her always)
If God wasn’t good…
If God wasn’t good…
Mother Theresa wouldn’t have been born
to reach the hopeless on their murky morn,
There’d be no pennies in the beggar’s bowl
and selfishness would be every man’s goal.
If God wasn’t good…
Soldiers wouldn’t march into the battlefield,
risking lives for country with a brave shield.
We wouldn’t be able to see pain in faces
that make hearts melt and notice such traces.
If God wasn’t good…
Clouds and horizon wouldn’t hide the sun
construction workers would go on and on,
autumn would remain just the way it is,
there’d be no shade to rest under the trees.
If God wasn’t good…
A baby’s cry wouldn’t be music to the soul
I would not find a hand in mine to console
atheists would die in their mothers’ wombs
vultures and wolves would unearth dead tombs.
If God wasn’t good…
Shrubs of the desert would dry and crumble,
the blind and the lame would simply tumble
there’d be barren
fish and barren trees aplenty
a cause of our deeds, yet God’s full of mercy.
If God wasn’t good…
Birds wouldn’t delight us with songs of dawn
there would be no dew upon the lawn,
waters of the ocean would stagnate with trash
without gravity airplanes and ships would crash.
If God wasn’t good…
There’d be no healing for a wounded heart,
or reunions after years of being away and apart
we’d see no vision in things we imagine
God is but goodness, in things seen and unseen.
Embrace
The evening breeze cuddles the trees
and the clouds caress the eagles
The morning embraces the sun,
birds, butterflies and bees
basking in the freshness of spring.
Flowers hug the raindrops
weighing them down
and the morning dew holds on to the grass,
Just as dust clings to the soles of our shoes,
Or a frown in sadness,
in happiness, when a smile blots upon our face.
All like the impulse
of mothers, fathers, sons and daughters,
friends and lovers …
Bloody Tears
The red fruits dropped,
and congregated on the sand
like a pool of tears.
Under an umbrella of the huge banyan tree,
Roots hung like strings,
for us to swing,
Little feet drew trails in the sand
separating the fruits from one another,
as these swings dragged us to and fro.
Overlooking the fields,
the tree,
watched the crop of different seasons,
weighed with the burdens of the realtors,
Standing in a grove of silence with falling tears.
Nature’s Palette
Have you ever taken the time
to look around and find
the colors on an artist’s palette?
Ever noticed the greens of the trees and the eyes?
Blues, greys and whites of the skies,
Reds of the apples, tomatoes, cherries or plums,
and again…of the evening skies?
Have you been dazzled by the yellow of the lemon,
have you seen inside your mind
the shade of the midday sun,
all its shades from its rising to its setting
and when the moon paints it black at eclipse?
Could you ever find the time
to count the colors of the flowers,
their babies and their lovers?
Can you differentiate the shades
from rainbow’s colors
as violet merges with indigo
and the rest into one another?
Can you say for sure the color of the moon,
Is it ivory or silver blue?
Who can deny the splendor of fur and feathers,
or the same landscape in different weathers?
All painted by the same artist that shaded us:
black, white, yellow and brown.
Opening Envelopes and Storytelling
Yesterday I went through my 1989 diary:
wine leather cover,
flipping pages, touching many things:
Photographs, cards,
Letters, feathers,
A few stamps torn from envelopes,
newspaper clippings of poetry on love: found
and one memory…
There’d be a peculiarity
of their essence, their fragrance,
their magic,
the delight, the anxiety
the anticipation of the next response,
Counting days.
Reading and holding close to my heart,
Saving them,
I thought would be for a lifetime.
She was someone awesome,
someone I had never seen, never met,
My diary was full of her envelopes,
Letters and cards,
then one day they stopped,
and I never heard from her again.
It’s been many years,
and I wonder about her,
Why there was a sudden end
to our communication.
I wonder what happened of her,
Opening her last envelope for the last time,
It read… “tell me a story…”
Athletes’ Feet - Tanka
Through soft morning mist
and faint bird chirps, joggers’ feet
wake sleepy sidewalks.
Strengthening mind and body,
touched by morning sun.
***
Let Flowers Die
If a flower could last forever
after all its nectar has been sucked from its breast,
What good would it be
to the bees, butterflies and birds
for whom it blooms?
How would there be fruit
without its dying?
How would life’s cycle be complete?
Wind Songs
Familiar sounds greet in the morning mist of fall,
Swaying trees pull me by the hand to dance
On a mosaic of gold and blushing leaves,
To waltz to masterpieces in slow cadence.
Like twisted roots we cling to each other,
Lost in song and the nearness of ourselves,
wind lifting us higher from the disquieting ground,
Floating us with birds, plunging into mystical spells.
Fading songs make the wind blow stronger and faster
While we keep to the rhythm with our bodies and feet,
Dancing the last moments till the wind grows weary
Floating us down like leaves at the stop of a beat.
Opening my sleepy eyes, the song continues to play,
Outside my window birds from Mussaenda, fly away.
Hale Bopp Haiku
spotlight in the sky
focus on earth’s performance
once in a lifetime
Vampire’s Reprisal
Violent wind sweeps the shallow lake,
and suffocates creatures to their fate.
Nocturnal wings flutter to the whistles of the wind,
breaching the bravery of the night.
My flesh, devoured by termites
of the earth you stood on, watching me,
being buried, relieved.
But I never died.
The blood, still keeps me alive and return to you,
as,
Once again the bitter moon provokes,
Parading slyly across the sky,
Hovering like a spotlight,
Revealing your alleviation,
wrapped in the arms of somebody else,
Moaning, shuddering,
As your bodies squirm and entwine like serpents.
You live on,
I do too, but can never love,
Can never hate, retaliate.
My vengeance like sweet syrup
trickles down from maple trees to the ground.
I retreat,
Only to remain the quintessence of our love.
Dolly
Tattered and disfigured,
soil-stained and soaked with food,
grai
ns, stiffened
cling to strengthen her weakening friend.
Wrapped in plastic, protected
She holds on to it, like the moss
embracing riverside rocks.
Their beauty,
Lost beyond recognition,
and their loved ones,
If survived the storm,
would make association impossible.
The slum is her only life,
An occasional visit to the heart
of the city, begging for survival,
is no more an excursion.
The pneumonia pins her down,
on the soggy slum soil,
Rainwater seeping
from a slouched canopy.
Other children bring food
from the nearby Samaritans
But she, too feeble to open her eyes,
Or sense the aroma of the food,
Breathing the remaining lungful of air,
Still clutching with tight fists,
Her frayed, foam friend,
Dry, stiff but warm…
That last Day in 1987
The bookworms had left…
1987,
the last day of school
last day of exams,
the last minutes
and I am scribbling the last words
of my answer,
last day we saw of each other
from where everything lasted
and faded like the languishing
fragrance of a passerby…
What we knew then, about love?
Just fifteen, infatuation pups.
The convent nuns must have been
cheerily chorusing the farewell creed,
while in your frigid face,
I could see the pain of goodbye.
Just you and I and our friends
leaving as doors were closing for us, forever.
Then, they left,
all…one by one over the years,
they left us to be on our own,
drowning us in memories.
They left slowly and never returned.
Our feelings of 1987, left us forever,
Our friends s c a t t e r e d here and there,
like the last day in that classroom
When all the bookworms had left…
Nuances of the
Nineties
Sipping Significance
of Life